The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm to end his office’s aggressive “John Doe” investigation into political advocacy groups, calling the series of probes “unsupported in either reason or law” and a “fishing expedition into the lives, work, and thoughts of countless citizens.”
Beginning in 2012, Chisholm and other prosecutors began seeking evidence of illegal political coordination between Wisconsin conservative organizations and Gov. Scott Walker (R). State law enforcement agencies raided individuals’ homes and private workplaces, seizing computers, personal financial records, and property.
Destroying ‘Their Political Enemies’
Eric O’Keefe, director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, one of the organizations targeted by Chisholm’s probes, says the criminal investigations were intended to punish people for being involved in the political process.
“The sweeping abuse here is unprecedented in Wisconsin,” O’Keefe said. “In the first phase of...

Fiscal

The City of Chicago is expanding an existing excise tax on movie and theater tickets to include streaming online video and music services, such as Netflix and Spotify, in order to generate additional revenue.
Steven Titch, a telecommunications policy analyst with the R Street Institute, says Chicago’s expansion of the tax is arbitrary and “an incredible overreach.”
Undefined Terms
“Chicago made the announcement that startups would be exempt from collecting the tax,” Titch said. “Well, that...

The federal government’s annual expenditure of more than $80 billion for information technology incurs rampant waste and inefficiency, according to a June report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Despite widespread inefficiencies in tech spending, President Barack Obama’s 2016 budget, released in February, calls for a $2.3 billion increase in spending on hardware and software, up to $86.4 billion.
According to the GAO report, federal spending on obsolete technology has also...